Friday, August 15, 2014

2014 - Presqui'ile Provincial Park

This is the second year that I have gone camping with Mike and based on past experience, even if the campground is dull, at least the food won't be!

Presqui'ile Provincial Park is a section of land that juts right out into Lake Ontario roughly 1.5 hrs east of Toronto, just after Cobourg. It will be Mike, Christina, Harold, Allison and myself for this camping experience.

We left Friday afternoon in order to try to beat the traffic and we failed. Who knew the highway east of the city would be busy at 2:30pm? It took us roughly 2 hours to get there. I took local roads and Mike took the highway, we were there slightly before Mike, but we did get in a pit stop at a yard sale (there are lots here!).

Last year we went camping around the same time (early August) but we went to Awenda and based on our experience, we all agree that this is a much preferred place between the two. It is easy to get to, has nice water, and a few other things to do.

The area that we stayed at, High Bluffs, is a mixed site with power/no-power/trailers all in one site. It was a different experience for all of us since we didn't expect that. Some trailers stay here for weeks at a time! We were initially shocked that the trailer behind us had a satellite dish only to discover that several trailers have this! Then we were shocked by the flamingo at the trailer next to us only to discover that a trailer a few sites away had a freaking PALM TREE outside of theirs.

The camp area is pretty flat, so bring your bikes, there are a lot of cyclists here. Also seems very family-friendly since we saw quite a few children, there was even a playpen at the site next to ours.

Mike, as usual, created a crazy menu for the weekend (we left on Friday and returned on Sunday) which consists of beef ribs, chicken skewers, chinese sausages, beef jerky, pork chops, wings, amongst other things. Sooooo goooooood!

Attractions / activities:
- Beach 1 (there are 3 parking lots listed as Beach 1, Beach 2, Beach 3 which all end up at the same beach, just different areas)
- Lighthouse (it is nothing fancy, worth a look if you are there, although it is quite far from the campsite)
- Park Store (stop here for some good ice cream, $2.65 after tax gets you 1 scoop which is about the size of a baseball)

Lessons learnt
- We should make a checklist to make sure we get everything. We pretty much covered everything except a few important things like paper towels.
- Avoid the areas listed as Beach 1 / Beach 2 / Beach 3. We stayed at High Bluffs and just at the beginning of High Bluffs is a rock area where you can go and swim. The water is much cleaner and less busy. The downside is that there is no sand, it's a rock beach, so be sure to bring some shoes or flip-flops.